Death's End полностью

Near the beginning of the Crisis Era, as Trisolaris sent sophons toward the Earth, it also launched six sophons at near-lightspeed to explore other regions of the galaxy.

All of these sophons soon entered blind regions and lost contact with home. The longest-lasting one managed to get seven light-years away. Additional sophons launched later met with the same fate. The closest blind region, only about 1.3 light-years from Earth, was the one encountered by the sophons that accompanied Gravity.

Once the quantum entanglement between sophons was broken, it could not be restored. Any sophon entering a blind region was lost forever.

Trisolaris remained mystified by the kind of interference the sophons received: Perhaps it was a natural phenomenon, or perhaps it was “man”-made. Scientists from both Trisolaris and Earth leaned toward the latter explanation.

Before being blinded, the sophons were able to explore only two nearby stars with planets. Neither system exhibited signs of life or civilization. But Earth and Trisolaris both came to the conclusion that their desolation was precisely why the sophons were allowed to approach.

Thus, even deep into the Deterrence Era, the universe at large remained hidden from the two worlds by a mysterious veil. The existence of these blind regions seemed to provide indirect proof for the dark forest nature of the universe: Something was preventing the cosmos from becoming transparent.

Losing the sophons was not fatal to Gravity’s mission, though it did make the job much harder. Before, the sophons could enter Blue Space at will and report on everything that was going on; now Blue Space appeared to Gravity as a sealed box. Moreover, the droplets lost real-time communications with Trisolaris and had to rely on the onboard AI. This led to unpredictable results.

The captain of Gravity decided that he could no longer afford to wait. He ordered Gravity to accelerate further.

As Gravity approached, Blue Space hailed the hunters for the first time, proposing a plan: Blue Space would load two-thirds of the crew—including the main suspects—onto pinnaces and send the pinnaces to Gravity if the remainder of the crew was allowed to continue their voyage into deep space aboard Blue Space. This way, a vanguard and seed for the human race would be preserved in space, keeping alive the hope for further exploration.

Gravity vehemently denied this request. The entire crew of Blue Space was suspected of murder, and all had to be tried. Space had transformed them until they were no longer members of the human race. Under no circumstances could they be allowed to “represent” humanity in space exploration.

Blue Space apparently realized the futility of running and of resisting. If only a human spaceship pursued them, then they at least stood a chance if they fought. But the two droplets changed the strategic calculus. Before them, Blue Space was nothing but a paper target, and there was no chance of escape. When the two ships were only fifteen AU apart, Blue Space announced its surrender and began to decelerate at maximum power. The distance between the two ships shrank rapidly, and it seemed that the long hunt was at last coming to an end.

Gravity’s crew emerged from hibernation and readied the ship for combat. The vessel, once silent and deserted, was once again filled with people.

Those who had been awakened faced the prospect of both a target nearly at hand and the loss of real-time communications with Earth. This loss did not pull them spiritually closer to the crew of Blue Space. To the contrary, like a child who was separated from her parents, the crew distrusted the parentless wild children even more. Everyone wished to capture Blue Space as quickly as possible and return home. Even though both crews were in the cold vastness of space, voyaging in the same direction at approximately the same speed, the natures of their voyages were completely different. Gravity had a spiritual anchor, while Blue Space was adrift.